$800 million Stolen by Iraqi Officials

Iraq's former finance minister Ali Allawi claimed in a CBS 60 minutes report which aired Sunday that up to $800 million meant to buy weapons for the Iraqi army had been stolen from the government by former officials through fraudulent arms deals.

The former minister said that $1.2 billion had been allocated from the Iraqi treasury to the defense ministry to buy new weapons. About $400 million was spent on outdated soviet era equipment, were in such poor shape they could not be used, while the rest of the money was simply stolen, he said.

Allawi said the arms fraud is "one of the biggest thefts in history" and that corrupt former Iraqi officials are now "running around the world hiding and scurrying around."

Iraqi investigators are probing several weapons and equipment deals engineered by former procurement officer Ziad Cattan and other officials including former Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan.

Cattan, wanted by Iraqi authorities and now living in Paris, was interviewed in the same "60 Minutes" broadcast and said he can account for the hundreds of millions he used to purchase weapons.

Most of the fraudulent arms purchases were allegedly made during the term of former interim Prime Minster Ayad Allawi who took office after occupation authorities turned over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 28, 2004, Ayad Allawi and Ali Allawi are cousins.

When new Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi took office in May 2005, an investigation was opened into several alleged cases of corruption.

Documents show the theft of $2.2 billion dollars from the time of Saddam Hussein's fall from power in 2003 until now. This clearly shows the lack of planing by the Bush administration. You would think the first thing to do when giving millions of dollars to a new government that you would send in accountants, but then again our government will spend four hundred dollars for a ten dollar hammer.